The Birthplace of Halloween

I'm getting really excited at the prospect of Halloween in Ireland. Halloween was INVENTED here, yo! As a result, Ireland takes Halloween VERY seriously. And it sounds really exciting. Also, kids get to trick or treat ON Halloween here! How cool is that? I wish I had gotten to trick or treat on the day. That would have made the experience even better.

At the risk of veering into politics, which is not what I want this blog to be about, I'm pretty set on going as Christine O'Donnell. It's not terribly creative and I wasn't sure if it would translate well to Irish culture, but when I asked Siobhan if she knew who she was, Siobhan immediately was like, "oh yeah! That's the woman who claims she isn't a witch, right?" So I bought a witch's hat for 2 euro, and a white t shirt for 3 euro, and I'm going to write "Christine O'Donnell for Senate" or something on the front, and on the back, just "I'm not a witch. Also, I'm you." (for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzHcqcXo_NA, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGGAgljengs, and http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-13-dumbest-christine-odonnell-quotes. It's well worth your time. I promise. I love my Republican friends, I don't love your politics, but I really feel like this is something we can all come together on.) Added bonus: I will probably be the only Christine O'Donnell running around Galway, while in pretty much every major American city, I imagine this will be one of the most popular costumes.

Although, it must be said, nothing will EVER top Jen/Katy/my Planeteers costumes or Tara's GIANT SQUID costume from 2008. Honestly, I think Tara will always win this contest, but I like to point out that the year she came up with the best costume EVER, I was a Planeteer.




You'll also note the differences between my friends and the majority of girls. Most girls treat Halloween as an excuse to go out in their underwear. We decided to go out in high-wasted hiking shorts, tennis shoes, and vests, while our other friend dressed up as a giant squid. (sidenote: I remember before the holiday, Tara told someone she was going as a giant squid, and he was like, "what?? Why??" Tara, totally calmly and like it was the most reasonable thing in the world, responded, "They are my favorite marine predator.")

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY (on Halloween) ALANA DIPESA! Now I really hope you read this. And note the labels.

I Can't Conclude This Essay

Currently, one of my least favorite things in the world is structural dependency theory. I have an essay due on Friday that is meant to gloss over how colonialism relates to both structural dependency theory and modernization theory. If your eyes glazed o
ver after reading those two sentences, multiply that by about 1,000 and you might be sort of close to where I am right now.

The essay is meant to be 2,500 words. I have 2,200 words. Literally all I need is a conclusion. I have been staring at my open Word document for close to two hours now. I have made a Christmas playlist on iTunes and have danced to it while doing dishes. I have done two loads of laundry and watched two episodes of Friends and one of Gilmore Girls. I don't even like Gilmore Girls. I find the dialogue way too staged and I think Rory (Alexis Bladel or whatever her name is) is one of the worst actresses to ever get a job on a TV show airing on a major network. I have aimlessly paged through the textbook I'm supposedly referencing throughout this essay. I have also invested way too much time into deciding precisely why I don't like Gilmore Girls. Now I'm updating this blog.

The one thing I literally cannot bring myself to do is write a conclusion to this essay.

I know a lot of people are probably groaning that I'm complaining that I can't finish an essay that is due on Friday. But I'm fully aware that I don't really know what I'm talking about in this essay, so in an ideal world, I need to finish this essay today, let it sit for a few days, and go back and read it on like Wednesday to see if it makes any kind of coherent, logical sense. And I actually cannot bring myself to write 300 words so I can just close my computer and get on with my day. I wish I had Mean Girls on DVD. That would be an excellent time waster.

This is an illustration of what I might do later today if I still don't have a conclusion to my essay written. Instead of using it to dis on girls from my high school (mostly because there were about 10 girls in my high school and I liked all of them and also that would be beyond pathetic) I may create the first Burn Book for Tea Party candidates.

One time in college (sidetrack) I watched Mean Girls three times in a row. This was due to two factors: 1) a lack of desire to do anything actually productive with my day 2) I was home alone and I couldn't get off the couch to remove the movie from the DVD player. Not like a mental block - I was actually, physically restrained from getting off the couch because every time I picked up my head even a tiny bit, the Long Island Iced Teas from last night began throbbing in my skull and my entire body begged for mercy. It was one of the worst days ever, and is also an excellent example of why you should always enter the Backer with a strong and clearly delineated idea of the amount of Long Island Iced Teas you plan to allow yourself to consume. Eventually Katy came home and fixed problem #2 for me. But right now, watching that film three times in a row actually sounds like a phenom way to spend six hours.

Anything. But. Writing. This. Conclusion.

Oh, Erin Wash, if you're reading this - I also read about ten entries from your blog. So thanks for that. It was really helpful, informative, fun, and interesting. How many more synonyms do you think I can come up with to describe your blog?

Ramblings about Dublin

I've realized I don't update this very often, and I'm sorry for that. It's just that no one wants to read a blog that consists of, "Today, I woke up and I ate breakfast. Then, I went to class. After that, I ate dinner. Then I read, then I went out for some pints, and now I am home updating this blog." And let's be realistic, that is pretty much what the vast, vast majority of my days consist of.

But I actually had a lovely little jaunt this weekend. I spent a day in Dublin! It was really nice to get out of Galway, only if for 24 hours. Don't get me wrong, Galway is great and I love it, but it is TINY. For people from home, it's approx the size of the Illinois side of the QC. Yeahhhh. For people who AREN'T from home, think of stories I've told you about my hometown, then divide that in half. Except the people are friendlier and there's more shops and restaurants and it's about 1,000x prettier than Moline/Rock Island. I sense I'm getting sidetracked here, so let's reorient.

POINT BEING I went to Dublin on Monday (which is still technically my weekend as I don't have class). My friend Erica, who was two years behind me at ND, was over for fall break. We sat in a pub and relived Scholastic and laughed over the ridiculous things our fellow staffers used to do and talked a LOT about BOB FRANKEN. (Scholastic was the
magazine I worked for/lived at in college, and BOB was our adviser. He had the best talk about libel and slander you could ever hope to hear. EVER.) Obviously, there was much talk of circuses and Britney Spears and getting the staff to respect us and meeting Captain Morgan. I mean, obviously.

So anyway, I also got the opportunity to explore Dublin a little bit. I've been there... twice now? But both times with my parents. (Who, by the way, read this, and I want to make clear my parents are fantastic human beings and I love them very much and clearly they are wonderful people to explore a major world city with.) Actually, maybe I've been there three times? REGARDLESS now that I had the chance to kinda do my own thing there I loved it! What a great city! I was almost getting angsty that I decided on studying in Galway instead of at Trinity or UCD, but then I reminded myself a) the program I wanted was at Galway and b) after a year in New York and six months in London (yes, this was a long time ago, and no, my bank account has not recovered), my finances (or lack thereof) legitimately could not handle the strain of another cosmopolitan world capital. I also discovered this exists. YES! I've already decided Katy and Tara and I will be going to this museum while they are here for New Years, so expect to see a lot of new obnoxious/potentially mildly offensive facebook pictures of us imitating the ND leprechaun outside the front doors of said museum. The pictures will probably look a little something like this:

(That's my house in college, and yes, one of the guys who lived there before us painted the leprechaun on the wall upstairs. When we first moved in, the landlord offered to paint it over for us, and we were like CLEARLY YOU ARE INSANE AND CLEARLY THIS IS SOMETHING WE WANT TO KEEP ON OUR WALL. That probably should have been a warning bell that our landlord was a nutjob, but no, that's a lesson we had to learn painfully. And slowly. And brutally. Also, this pose was Tara Brito's idea and from her facebook album, so credit goes to her. Sorry for pilfering. Sorry for partying.)

So the takeaway from that extended little ramble about my day in Dublin can be summed up as follows:

1) I went to Dublin.
2a) If you put any two ND alums in an enclosed area they will inevitably end up drinking and then talking about Notre Dame too much (Erica is not an alum yet, but this works for the purposes of this list).
2b) I miss Notre Dame and Scholastic.
3) I want to go to the Leprechaun Museum.
4) My house in college had a leprechaun in the upstairs.

That's the basic distillation of my main points, I think.

Go Irish (the ND kind),

Molly

Irish Television

Irish television is actually phenomenal. It's borderline my new favorite part of living here.

I just got a TV today (long story). I have spent the majority of my day parked in front of it grading papers. I have watched a show called "Fat Families" where a mean British host basically takes on a fat family and tells them how to eat right and exercise. There is also a segment where he ambushes people who are just out walking around and tells them that they are fat and how many calories are in whatever it is that they are eating. I then watched, "Take Me Out," where Irish women go on this game show-type thing and compete to be taken out on dates. They are inevitably blond and fake-looking and say things like, "I want a guy with a big.....(extended pause)....HANDS." You are supposed to laugh because you thought she was going to be saying something different! GEDDIT?!?!?!

They also show "Friends" which, if you have ever met me, you know how excited I am about that. But the best part about it is that Irish television must have less strict controls than American television, because they show some of the dirtier parts on television that they can only show on the DVD extended version in America. (yes, I can tell when something is from the DVD extended version. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've seen every episode at least 8 times.) The ads are also absolutely OUTSTANDING. I could probably land a job now in the advertising biz in Ireland with absolutely no experience in PR or marketing.

There is also apparently a show called "Father Ted." I haven't seen it yet, but people LOVE it. The most I can gather is it's about a lecherous and/or idiotic priest. Maybe you can only get this if you went to Notre Dame, but this bothers me for a very obvious reason. Father Ted = Father Ted Hesburgh, and Father Ted is probably the best person who has ever existed in the history of the world. I don't like lumping him in with some fictional weird creepy priest. That's just not okay.

Even with that, though, basically, this is perhaps the happiest I've been since moving to this country. I actually cannot wait to see what other things Irish television holds in store for me. I can't believe how long I've gone without a TV. To couch potatoing!

One More Crazy

I actually forgot about this until just now, but I had another very odd conversation with another very odd man.

This one occurred before one of my classes. It's a long story, but I go to this undergraduate class sometimes not for credit. Right before it started one day, an older man, clearly a mature student, turned to me and asked me the time or some similarly simple question. When I answered, he was like, "Oh! You're American!" and I was like, "yeah, guilty." He then asked me if I was from Boston. I said, "No, Chicago," (as I'm telling people I casually meet in situations such as these I am from Chicago) and he says, "Oh! You ever go to Canada?"

Now, I have never been to Canada. (When I told this story to Katy over Skype, she shrieked, very loudly and very Katy-ly, "WHAT??? YOU'VE NEVER BEEN TO CANADA???" I know this is unusual, so I sort of laughed and said, "no, never been to Canada." Katy: AHHHH!!!! WE HAVE TO GO TO CANADA!!!! I then mentioned if we went to Canada together, we would have gone to every North American country together as we went to Mexico for spring break, and you can imagine the shrieking and screaming and Canada-insisting that happened then.) ANYWAY. This gentleman, upon my telling him I have never been to Canada, says, "Oh! But it's just right there!" Confused, I say, "No.... it's probably like a 10-12 hour drive." "From Chicago??" "Yes... well... yes." I couldn't think of anything to say, really. I mean, it's a drive to Canada from Chicago.

He then says, "No! It's like, an hour, tops. I know geography." "Um... no. Because you have to drive up through Michigan or Minnesota first." Although, at this point, I will say I was starting to doubt myself. As I don't ACTUALLY live in Chicago, I started to wonder if there was a way to get to Canada from Chicago that I was just overlooking. But then he made it all better by saying...

"But those lakes. Isn't there a bridge or something that you can use to get across?"

As Annemarie said when I told her this story, "Uh, what? Those lakes are bigger than some OCEANS." I mean, not really, but you get the point. No, there is not a bridge going across Lake Michigan to Canada.

After I cleared up that misconception, though, there was more. "So, Chicago, eh? You read any German newspapers?"

"I... don't...uh... speak German."

"Well, right, but do you read any?"

"Um... no."

The only thing I can think of for this is perhaps he knew, in the back of his head or something, that Chicago was a big Polish immigrant town. Maybe he sort of knew that, and then got Poland and Germany confused... I don't know. I mean, it's a stretch, but it's the only way I can think of to legitimize that one.

I then explained to him that the Windy City was not named for the winds (although, to be fair, I think I told my dad or someone that this summer and whoever I told had never had any idea), told him that I was sorry, but I didn't know when the Great Fire was (although I did know Mrs. O'Leary's cow started it, which was a bit of trivia he was impressed with), and that, yes, Barack Obama is from Chicago, and no, I do not know him. (And to be clear, all this imparting of knowledge was because he asked me all these questions, not because I was volunteering Chicago information.) He was also about to ask me something else but class started.

So, yeah. But I do want to be clear about something. I was telling this story to some people in my program, and one guy was like, "Man, you're going to go home and tell all these stories about these weirdos, and everyone is going to think Ireland is full of crazy people." Although I have met two extremely odd men, the vast, vast majority of people (and men) in Ireland have been incredibly nice and haven't asked me odd questions about America's third-largest city or assumed I was a gangster. (Although, now that I'm thinking of it, both these odd men were somehow tripped into asking me odd questions by the mention of Chicago. Hmm.) So yeah. The crazies are just the ones who stick out in your mind.

Because I love Tara

Tara Brito claims I don't update my blog enough. She's probably right. I don't have a ton to say but I'll update because it's Sunday and I'm still in my pajamas and realistically, what else am I going to do?

I. Love. Graduate school. This hit me last night when I was reading a book of literary theory before going out. Yes, mock me all you want, I know that was a nerdy sentence. But it was like 8 pm on a Saturday, I'm sitting in my going out clothes and highlighting a dense book of theory, and all of a sudden I was just like, "wow. I love this. I love school." I think my plan right now is to take another year off and work a job that actually pays me money while I apply to Ph.D programs. I want my professors from my master's program to write me my letters of rec, and I can't ask them to write them now - they've known me like, a month. What could they possibly say? But yeah. Man. I can't imagine doing really anything except being in school for as long as possible, and then teaching people in a university setting. Basically, that stereotype of the liberal professor in the ivory tower who couldn't hack it in the "real world?" More or less, I want to be that stereotype. A month of graduate school has clinched this conviction for me one hundred times over. I spent a good portion of my morning googling Ph.D programs. This is what I do for fun.

ANYWAY. Moving on. On a slightly, but not very, less nerdy note, Annemarie and I have started a running regime. She is running the Connemara marathon in April. I am not doing this thing, but I told her I'd run with her until she gets up to the level where I have to back out. I mean, I like being in shape, but I draw the line somewhere. And that line is in the 5-7 mile range (if not sooner). But yesterday was our first day and my legs are KILLING me. We didn't have a pedometer but we came home and googlemapped our route and we ran somewhere in the 2.5 mile range. I ran pretty frequently already, but it's sooo much harder when you're with someone else because I tend to cut myself off early and allow myself a lot of walking breaks. Brutal, but good.

I don't really know what else to say. I booked a flight to London to visit my cousin Emmy in November, and we're going to do a Thanksgiving! Not on the actual day, because I have to go to class and stuff, but on the Saturday after Tgives. Just found out my little sister is coming to Ireland over her Christmas break, right after Tara and Katy leave. (Tara and Katy are coming for New Year's, which I am SO excited about and literally think about on a daily basis.) I'll still be on break when she's here, and we're thinking of going up to Northern Ireland to see where our family is from. (yeah, they're from Northern Ireland.) We did this once before when we were much younger. I don't remember a ton about the trip except suspicious old ladies eyed us wherever we went and literally wouldn't speak to us until we assured them we were Catholic, and by extension, Irish and not British. It was actually sort of spooky, now that I'm remembering it better. Oh, and on the same trip, we spent most of our time in the Republic and kept commenting on how great it was to be in a place that wasn't overrun with corporations and urban sprawl crap. As soon as we crossed the border into Northern Ireland/the UK, the first thing we saw was a Safeway next to a McDonald's. So... yeah. That'll be fun.

I'm off to the farmer's market today. I've been meaning to go and it's not raining so it seems like a good day to finally make that happen. Love and miss all of you!